1991 Yiwu Zhen Shan from Nadacha

This was a friendly sample Nada included in the fulfillment of my order of tea samples from his little online puerh boutique. It's not for sale on the site ... so these notes are designed only to inflame passions that my readers cannot quench. But I have to tell someone about this sheng.

I'm only into the fifth infusion of what looks to be a long session, likely stretching into tomorrow, but the first infusion (no rinse) immediately declared itself as something unusual, it was flavorful and drying with a dull caramel impression, sweet, thick almost to the point of being sticky in the mouth. My experience is limited, but I would guess this tea has been dry stored. The taste develops into something earthy, but not earthy like shu, more like an elemental ginger root or an almond. About the third infusion I started to realize that this is a strong tea, even a little crude. It is drying but otherwise not astringent, complex but not subtle. There is a lot of energy in its qi but it is more a carpenter's or builder's qi, not the monk's or scholar's. It feels like a large, friendly hand resting on your shoulder, guiding you. It is still obviously young, but like those youths whose experience makes them wise in many ways beyond their years.

I have never really had anything like this stuff. Perhaps if Nada notices this post before his trip he can tell us something more about this unusual tea. I feel sure there must be an exotic tale behind it! It doesn't seem Yiwu-like, at least not in my dim understanding of Yiwu.

I wonder if I wrote the wrong year on the package or whether you may have misread my poor writing, but this tea is actually from 2001.

It's 2001 Chung-Hwa Yi Wu "Jin Yeh Hao", which was also sold some time ago by YS as 2000 Yiwu Zheng Shan.

It's been stored in humid Guangzhou for some of it's years, leading to a mellowing of the tea, but then moved to dry Kunming, allowing any humid flavours to dissipate a bit. This may have been where some of the confusion as to it's age lay.

I picked up a couple of tongs of this for my own tea stash, from which I sent the sample. I'm glad you enjoyed the qi - it was primarily this that encouraged me to stock up on this to drink in future years.

I'm glad you enjoyed the tea though - I try not to visit this tea too often, but taste it now and again to make some mental observations on how it ages.... I'm curious to see what this qi will do given some time.

This period of a tea's life is perhaps one of the most interesting for me - it's not quite aged, but still not young. At the moment I'm making some effort to sample more teas of this age and a little older to try to get more of a feel for the transitional process that makes the great flavours I enjoy in a good aged pu. There's so much about this tea that fascinates me!

I'm glad you enjoyed the tea though - I try not to visit this tea too often, but taste it now and again to make some mental observations on how it ages.... I'm curious to see what this qi will do given some time.

This period of a tea's life is perhaps one of the most interesting for me - it's not quite aged, but still not young. At the moment I'm making some effort to sample more teas of this age and a little older to try to get more of a feel for the transitional process that makes the great flavours I enjoy in a good aged pu. There's so much about this tea that fascinates me!

with warmest wishes,nada.

@ nada, if you get to read this, that chunk of pu was great. a new taste to me. thanks. i did not detect that funkiness of pu that has been aged in humidity. was this pu aged in a drier environment? what's the back ground of that cake?

which tea are you referring to? the one in this post or the GYG I sent? If it's the GYG, I think it spent most of it's life in Hong Kong, but in some fairly good storage conditions. I'm glad you enjoyed it.